Similar proposals appear stalled in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, all Republican-controlled states won by Democrat Barack Obama in 2012.

But in Pennsylvania, the idea still has life.

Sen. Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi plans legislation to award electoral votes proportionately based on each presidential candidate's share of the popular vote, rather than the current winner-take-all system. Under his plan, Obama, who won 52 percent of Pennsylvania's popular vote, would have been awarded 12 of Pennsylvania's 20 electoral college "electors," and Republican Mitt Romney the other eight.

"[This system] much more accurately reflects the will of the voters in our state," Pileggi, who represents Chester and Delaware counties, wrote in a December memo outlining his plan to his fellow senators.

Democrats see it differently.

"They have to cheat in Pennsylvania in order to win," Democratic Party Chairman Jim Burn said.

Besides benefiting Republicans, the plan would dilute Pennsylvania's presidential clout, said Sen. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery. Any candidate would be hard-pressed to win by more than a margin of six electoral votes — equivalent in size to winning Iowa.

Republicans can't find a candidate who appeals to Pennsylvania's moderate voters, Burn said, so they are trying to "rig the system."

The last Republican to carry the state in a presidential election was George H.W. Bush, who won in 1988 on his way to the White House. He lost it in 1992, when Democrat Bill Clinton made him a one-term president.

Lots of people, including Democrats, are unhappy with the Electoral College, said Pileggi spokesman Erik Arneson, and Pennsylvania has no obligation to defer to other states that dropped electoral vote changes.

"The goal is to align Pennsylvania's electoral votes with its popular vote," Arneson said. "There are states with four to six electoral votes at stake that got a lot of attention in this last race."

The maneuvering is nothing new, said Lara Brown, a Villanova University political scientist. Parties have jockeyed for electoral advantage since the days of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

"When a political party loses an election, they look for ways to change the game so that they can then win in the future," Brown said. "The Democrats went through this exact same process right after the 2000 election."

When Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral college to George W. Bush, 21 states considered switching to proportional allocation of electoral votes, she said. It's arguably the fairest way to allocate electoral votes, but makes more sense if every state does it.

The electoral vote proposal is not atop the majority leader's list of legislative goals and it will likely be months before the measure would come to a vote if it gets that far, spokesman Arneson said.

Gov. Tom Corbett is "open to discussion" but focused on the state budget, spokeswoman Janet Kelley said.

Arneson said Pileggi has not received any feedback from the state's congressional delegation.

The National Republican Committee is also staying out of it. Ryan Mahoney, an RNC spokesman, said, "It's a state issue and each state can decide what's in their best interest."

However, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told a newspaper in Wisconsin, a state also considering changing its electoral vote distribution, that the change is something states that vote Democrat but are run by Republicans "ought to be looking at."

Pam Wilmot of Common Cause, a good-government group pushing back against such plans, said Pennsylvania is one state where Republicans aren't letting up because it really could change the outcome of the election.

Where Virginia is truly a swing state that could go either way for president, Pennsylvania has voted for the Democrat for six presidential elections, she said.

"I think these things are clearly a partisan effort to rig the game, [to] change the rules midstream," she said. "And the best place to rig the game is to do it where it's not going to come back to bite you, in a state consistently Democrat in the general election, yet controlled by the opposite party."

In 2011, Pileggi offered a proposal that would have allocated electoral votes by congressional district. That went nowhere, partly because the state's congressional delegation revolted. Corbett even visited Washington for a closed-door meeting with the GOP lawmakers.

Under Pileggi's new proposal, two electors would be awarded to the overall winner of the state's popular vote. The remaining 18 would be divided proportionately based on the winner's and loser's shares.

It's a proposal that U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-15th District, said he would be more comfortable with, but he's not overly concerned about it either way.